Editor’s Note: The following is a press release provided by Willes K. Lee who was recently re-elected as a Director on the NRA Board.

It is truly humbling to receive support from our members and many non-members to continue to serve you as a Director on the NRA Board. Thank YOU. For 26 years as a soldier, I was privileged to be a Defender of Freedom. I am honored to continue to defend freedom with the National Rifle Association of America, freedom’s safest place. If you are reading this, your vote and support made THE difference.

Without having the name recognition of more high-profile candidates, our grassroots victory is important for our five million NRA members, 20 million supporters, and 100 million gun owners. Our Board officers, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, ILA Executive Director Chris Cox and press officers speak for the NRA, but our readers can follow our civil rights progress online at www.WillesLee.com, Facebook WillesLeeNRA, and Twitter/Instagram @WillesLee.

We’ll do our best to keep our grassroots informed and involved so they can do what they love – protect the Second Amendment, shoot, hunt, collect, or go out in the backyard and plink. We have the opportunity to take back our civil rights stolen by anti-gun activists funded by Bloomberg and Soros. It is our time to secure the Second Amendment and regain the liberties stolen by anti-gun progressives. We’re working to pass an initial national reciprocity law and the Hearing Protection Act.

At state and local levels, I’ll engage in challenges across the nation as legislators, judges, and bureaucrats invent new ways to restrict our Second Amendment rights. As important, within the NRA, this win gives a voice to our grassroots members. Since retiring from our military, having been in politics as a member of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Chairman of the Hawaii Republican Party, current President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) and National Director of the Hawaii Republican Assembly (HIRA), a Director for the American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation which hosts CPAC, and a Council for National Policy (CNP) member, I am deeply committed to advancing the interests of gun owners while fighting legislative and regulatory attempts to undermine our rights.

It is an honor to serve on the NRA Board of Directors, Col. Ollie North’s NRA Military and Veteran’s Affairs Committee, our NRA Outreach Committee, and as a co-chairman of the Trump-Pence Second Amendment Coalition I am a member of and will continue to partner with our many effective coalition organizations supporting the Second Amendment. However, none offer the depth and range, no pun intended, of the NRA.

In addition to legislation and protecting our civil rights, NRA programs span from competitions, to hunting, youth shooting, collecting, training, self-defense, safety, to conservation and much more. Supporting all our programs, my focus includes legislation, military and veterans, self-defense, the shooting sports, outreach to new segments of our community, and our fastest growing group — women gun owners and shooters. If you are a member of our National Rifle Association of America, thank you. If you are not, please join, today.

Thank you to all the voters and non-voters who supported our grassroots campaign to ensure your voice on the NRA Board.”